Helios Press Fundraiser – Pre-Order Ends May 1st

PREORDERS FOR HELIOS DIE HARD LPS WILL END ON MAY 1ST. FUNDRAISER ITSELF WILL CONTINUE UNTIL WE ARE OPEN!

The Helios Fundraiser is going on right now! You can check out the products and services here. This campaign includes 5 exclusive limited edition NWN LPs, along with Helios T Shirt, Patch, discounts on future orders, etc.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE DON’T ORDER HELIOS FUNDRAISER ITEMS WITH NWN DISTRO ITEMS TOGETHER. IT WILL MAKE IT HARDER FOR US TO KEEP TRACK OF THE PRE-ORDERS AND SHIPPING LOGISTICS.

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I’m Yosuke Konishi, owner of NWN! Productions, an underground metal label I founded in 2000, and Eastern Front Records, a brick and mortar record store located in Austin, TX. Now I am proud to announce a new venture called Helios Press—a full-scale record pressing plant currently under construction and opening later this year in Brady, TX. Our mission is to produce high-quality, domestically manufactured vinyl records, across all genres, for fans and collectors that still revere the experience of listening to music on physical formats and appreciate the purity of phonographic sound.

I’ve been consistently expanding the reach of my record label for the last 24 years. What began for me as a bedroom hobby gradually evolved into a side-business and, finally, a career. Much has changed since I pressed the first record on my label in 2001. Back then, CDs were still the dominant format, digital downloads of music files were a new phenomenon, streaming services did not exist, and the vinyl resurgence of the 2010s was not yet in sight. There were many obstacles to overcome in those early years of NWN. Up to that point, my relationship to records was strictly as a consumer and collector, and information about the vinyl manufacturing process was hard to come by. Putting out records was an expensive hobby, and the internet had not yet reshaped and opened up our system of commerce, making distribution and sales challenging for small and independent labels.

As both a collector and label owner, I’ve lived and breathed records every day for the past 35 years, so I understand what music fans, bands, and labels want and need from a pressing plant. I’ve been downstream from the manufacturing process for so long that I understand every pain point labels experience when pressing records. I’ve been contemplating the possibility of opening a pressing plant for years, and the extreme difficulties that arose during the pandemic—extended wait times, increasing shipping costs from Europe and Asia, the lack of domestic manufacturing options, diminished quality control standards, and reduced customer service—underscored the necessity of a new alternative. I quit my day job last year and began strategizing and exploring my options with a trusted business partner, setting into motion the sequence of events that led to the creation of Helios Press.

We have already invested significant personal resources and secured most of the crucial elements of this business. Last year, we purchased a 7500-square-foot warehouse in Brady, TX, and ordered four manual record pressing machines from Germany. The presses are due to arrive here this summer, and construction is currently underway on the building. Based on the swift progress we’ve made, we currently anticipate that the plant will be open and operational by this winter.

These are the same machines we bought:

Helios warehouse. Photos taken shortly before the purchase.

Up to this point, we have relied entirely on our personal savings to finance this enormous project. We are still in need of some additional capital to purchase a boiler/chiller system, used for melting and hardening the vinyl. Based on our calculations, this will cost approximately $300,000 including the necessary infrastructure and the cost of installation. We’ve gone as far as we can using our own money so now we are asking our supporters for help.

Your contributions will go directly toward the acquisition and installation of the boiler/chiller system and finalizing the necessary construction at the warehouse. We will continue to pursue every available avenue to obtain the necessary funding, but with your support, we believe we can expedite this process and ensure that we can reach our goal of making the plant operational sometime this year.

As a contributor to this campaign, you will be entitled to a number of exclusive rewards. All backers will have the opportunity to be on our online “Eternal Thanks List” forever and get their names added to an insert that will accompany the “Die Hard Helios Edition” LPs that are pressed at Helios. Other rewards include:

-Exclusive “Die Hard Helios Edition” LPs of several classic NWN titles of your choice or a bundle of all of them.






-Exclusive test pressings.

-Helios T shirt, patch, and tote bag.



-Factory tour (1 hour).

-Factory tour + Press your own record (2 hours).

-15% discount on your first order with Helios Press.

-20% discount on all NWN distro orders for 1 year.

-20% discount on mastering from Enormous Door.

+ More! Please check out the complete list of products and services here.

Thank you for your support and contribution to making Helios a reality a little sooner than we could’ve on our own. We look forward to pressing your next record!

Yosuke Konishi
NWN Productions
Helios Press